Loomio
Sat 17 Sep 2022 3:56PM

Bacterial Nanowires for Organic Electronics

J JohnL Public Seen by 48

Hey, hope my first post is going where it needs to. That aside, I had an idea for a less conventional project: Biological electronics. In particular, using nanowires from Geobacter as components for self-powered logic gates and maybe even Arduino architecture micro-controllers. However, I'd need someone to culture E. coli to produce the nanowires (see linked paper). Also attached to the context is a document outlining the idea further.

Microelectronics currently requires costly infrastructure and specialized design skills. This greatly increases economic vulnerability and strategic dependencies, as well as removing the ability of an end-user to comprehend the device... By constructing logic gates of electrically sensitive microbes and proteins, a parallel computing architecture can be reconstructed without the need for costly, conventional cleanrooms and industrial facilities.

Happy to detail more if anyone is interested. Thanks!

J

JohnL Sat 17 Sep 2022 3:56PM

Thanks everyone!

GB

Glyxon Biolabs Sun 18 Sep 2022 2:07PM

Hello, John, I'm interested! could we have a discussion with further details? you can write me to [email protected] so we can arrange a video call. Thanks!, David.

D

Danny Mon 19 Sep 2022 7:12PM

If possible perhaps you can schedule this discussion using the tools available over Loomio? There is a "time poll" option under the Start Poll tab. I for one would also like to attend if I am available (and can facilitate if necessary). Although please do not feel any pressure to find a time between a large group, I just think it would be mutually beneficial (and indeed aligned to BwoB ideals) to open up communication with the group.

A

adrian Mon 19 Sep 2022 1:38PM

I guess your first step is to contact the authors and ask them
nicely for the plasmids. So start there.

Culturing the ecoli is relatively simple and I can do it or
direct somebody in doing it. Purification seems to have several
options that would require some reagents. They do not seem to be
very complicated but will need to be acquired.

Cheers,

Adrian

J

JohnL Mon 19 Sep 2022 8:54PM

Hi Adrian, here is what I am looking to replicate. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/856302v1.full.pdf

D

Danny Mon 19 Sep 2022 8:48PM

@JohnL Can I share the research proposal you shared with me on the Ronin Scholar Slack here? It might be useful to give folks a better idea of what you are thinking about.

J

JohnL Mon 19 Sep 2022 8:54PM

Yes! @Danny Go ahead.

PPP

Paige Perillat Piratoine Wed 19 Oct 2022 7:11AM

Hi Danny,

Thank you for sharing, it’s actually very timely. We have been working with UMASS University and have some nanowires from them, which we have been able to successfully use to generate voltage on our alginate biomaterial (just yesterday). David and John have very interesting ideas and it would be terrific to collaborate. Where are they based by the way?

And how can we connect?

Thanks for thinking of us,

Paige

Le mar. 18 oct. 2022 à 22:42, Danny (via Loomio) a écrit :

D

Danny Thu 20 Oct 2022 1:56PM

I believe you can @ them in this thread and ask them yourself, but I haven't used Loomio as a guest so I'm unsure (mostly I imagine the guest functionality just letting external folks know about threads they may find interesting or asking for advice). This thread is public so you will have access if you create an account. I'm unsure if they have met to discuss these ideas yet, but that seemed like David wanted to have an 1:1 with John. I will reiterate that time polls for scheduling a time to meet are available from Loomio.

PPP

Paige Perillat Piratoine Sun 23 Oct 2022 11:36AM

@Danny thank you - very unfamiliar with Loomio. @JohnL - as I mentioned above, we're in contact with UMASS and they've been supporting us to replicate their studies and understand how pili behave on our biomaterial. Would be great to chat - We're trying to figure out how to scale production of that E.coli to liquid batch so we can get more pili to experiment with. UMASS have low capacity in terms of making this happen (PS - About us, we're a small biodesign collective composed of 4 women )

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